“Battles Of The Lys” & “The Forgotten Battle” – G.Blades

One of the key resources for developing this site has been the copy of “Hazebrouck – The Forgotten Battle” by Geoffrey Blades. Geoffrey’s family have kindly allowed me to publish both “The Forgotten Battle” and also his wider scope work; his Masters (M.Phil) thesis entitled “The Battles Of The Lys” from Kings College, London.

Note: “The Forgotten Battle” is an extremely detailed analysis of the 4th Guards Brigade action in front of Hazebrouck, which is summarised in Chapter 5 of the thesis. This document therefore still remains important as a separate resource for those interested in detailed 4th Guards Brigade history.

In Geoffrey’s own words: “This thesis is dedicated to my grandfather; who, as 21523 Private Albert Shipley 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guards, was captured near Merville on 12 April 1918”.

Click through the link below to open “The Battles Of The Lys” (1.3Mb Adobe file).